juni 28, 2013

juni 20, 2013

Today the world felt grey and dark in Zugzwang, Very strange was one moment when traveling trough Zugzwang. I found a huge flying box, a box i reconized from early paintings of mine i once made at college. Around this box in my paintings figures would stand still, looking at the box. Sometimes they would fulfill actions from wich i don’t know the meaning. I sometimes feel that those people standing around the box, that they know every answer we still don’t know. We see them, but can’t see their knowledge. And you know what the strange thing is? I am the creator of them. I see the past, create them in wich they ”are” the future of who we will become.

I am the one who made that box on the painting. And again the best solution in Zugzwang was creating a floating box, now trough virtual reality. But why a box? A Obelisk? Or a grey dessert full of empty space. Every time when i enter Zugzwang again the world is new, for me as creator it is a new experience every time. I add something new, sketch in the world my ideas, enter to see what i created and, and,, i am lost again in this capsule of the ”nothing” The transcendental feeling that meaning of it’s objects and environment is somewere else is liberating. I can see in the distant something i already tought about, mayby a smoking dogs there, and ducks with a person who is playing piano in the middle of the dessert. In Zugzwang i am lost on the plain. But i see the future of what will become in this world, what i will encounter next. And still when i discover these places were ducks walk around in the middle of a dessert, i don’t know their reason.

This text is a bit vague, but you should know how difficult it is to travel between reality, the mind, and another reality trough Virtual reality in wich both come toghether so clear and crisp. I think i will travel some more, i don’t know how i managed to type this text and travel trough Zugzwang at thesame time? I didn’t but in mymind i am lost in Zugzwang, even when in type something that is another reality of it’s own.

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juni 17, 2013

Ascedia is a condition in wich a person is feeling himself empty, bored with life and not knowing what to do. He or She cannot take a step further trapped within life. It is a kind of ongoing laziness that will never stop, life is passing by slowly slower and finaly make you die inside your mind. In The world of Zugzwang you could reconize aspects of laziness and boring emotions ongoing forever? You walk around in Zugzwang between the wind and emptyness. You can call this place a metaphor for nothing, a transcendental layer in wich physical objects and nature are rare within it’s pure format. Only sometime you discover a place wich holds a group of object’s or living elements. These places sad enough are in itself very far away from you, they do not look alive at all. They only make you feel yourself more on your own.

Light is the only element that connects you with your environment. It is the light that can make you visible and alive. But even light is timeless and therefore empty and into the great nothing, beyond our controlled space of memory. You could however speak of a transcendental layer. A invisible layer existing somewere else in wich the story is being told you encounter within the virtual reality world. An example could be the guy sitting at the table in the middle of the dessert humbling in himself. He is not aware of your presence. He is somewere else, he is sitting on a chair but in his experience he has lost the physical world? He seems very lost but you cannot get in contact with him. On the other hand you are lost as well, forgotten about the world you are living in now, but also reading this text is another dimension wich makes you fantasize the world I talk about. Everything grows out of nothing and will end in nothingness. The world of Zugzwang is a romantic idealism trying to reach Casper David Friederich position in wich human race feels himself powerless against nature. At the end we now nothing about the reasson of all that is in existence. We strange enough try to create the nothing in creating shells like Zugzwang in wich you can experience “emptyness” or “nothing”.

the art of painting I am fascinated that a painting never exists in the physical reality. It always is your reflewction on the object. You do not get anything out of a painting, you knew what you reconized.

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juni 16, 2013

Welcome to Zugzwang.nl the place were you can follow Alle Jong his project Zugzwang. All sorts of information about the project will be shared on this website think of trailers and the storytelling beyond some aspects of this project. In a few weeks from now a video trailer will be posted.

Still from Alle Jong his world – Zugzwang

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mei 16, 2013

Zugzwang is a situation in wich the best move is not to move. Life itself makes you move al the tine were you sometime dont want to. The desperate situation in wich you dont know what life will bring to you is fearfull.

For the last few years i expirimented with animation and computer game design, some projects still did not succeed as i wanted but for my new work ”Zugzwang” things go smoothly. the basics behind this project is that i wanted to look behind the freezed moments in my drawings, bring them alive. In my drawings i quickly sketch fantasy based ideas, most of the time they keep deep layers of knwoledge in itself in wich you can explore the unkown.

image 1 : Ingame still of ”Zugzwang” A whole new but more intense way to experience my world of thinking

From a drawing to Virtual reality

But! A drawing is only flat and not moving at all, so you need your fantasy to unfold the secrets drawn on a piece of paper. I wanted more, art itself (for me) has the purpose to make you experience something that is far away from the real world, i think it is important as an artist to explore new techniques. Why not using new media to go beyond the limits of old art techniques, creating and create a experience far beyond that of a drawing? Project Zugzwang is being build for a virtual reality glasses wich brings you to a stereoscopic 3d environment with headtracking, meaning that if you move your head, you also look within that world into another direction. All this together brings you to another dimension. It is fantastic to step into the world of my drawings! A huge world is being build at the moment in wich you will travel trough several settings brought together from alot of my drawings. Little moments of thought come together in a isolated huge world.

The World of Zugzwang

Image 2 : A scene found when traveling trough the world of Zugzwang.

As said: In the world of Zugzwang you can walk around in a huge world. It feels like a black/grey drawing, you still need your fantasy to clear up in wich way you read the story of what you see. At thesame time this world is like a dessert you can walk in for up to twenty minutes without discovering anything, but if you keep searching, keep playing, then you will find treasures, little environments in wich my fantasy comes alive for you, like little sketches of my mind brought to you in a real environment. You are moving yourself trough this world, don”t forget this is not a video! You are in that world yourself, you have to explore to discover.

A strange discussion that pops up from this project is that my drawings and paintings will look like a kind of vacation stills showing a place you once visited far away. Because it is not a flat movie youre looking at on your television, or a game on your computer screen but real virtual reality. This makes it a real other dimension, even if it is not out of your room. So have my drawings & paintings become only a refference to my digital world? Even if those drawings were made before this digital world? Or was this world allready existing, and am i opening the door to it, after all somehow this world was allready there in my fantasy all the time, so will this still make my drawings or paintings a refference to another world (the digital version) you really can explore trough virtual reality?

image 3 : A drawing wich i sculpted into a 3d environment, see other image within this post

New ways of experience: an example

when walking trough Zugzwang, i discovered things i would never know about my world when looking at a drawing of mine. For instance take the drawing shown at image ”3”. In Zugzwang it takes up to twenty minutes to walk to that huge black object, you start far away from it, it is very strange walking for minutes without the object coming closer. It’s that huge! Your experience of scale is fantastic, your way of looking at this object gets more layered.

Virtual Reality glasses combined with head tracking and stereoscopic 3d, sound/music, moving images and characters in a fully 3d environment make you really travel to another dimension. For thousands of years humanity was trying to build machines for manipulating our mind, making us travel to another world. Our brain can imagine whole worlds only by looking at a still image, we learned to read those trough history. For me it is very important not only to paint or draw my worlds, it is old fashioned to only paint or draw as an artist at one hand, for me the most important is making my fantasy as sharp as possible, the mind is always vague, but using computer visuals you can create a real environment. more information and atmospherical footage wil come soon!